1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a manually operated winch bumper for vehicles.
2. General Discussion of the Background
Electric winches have previously been mounted on some vehicles. It has been especially popular to place such powered winches on pickup trucks and other rough terrain vehicles to help extricate the vehicle from muddy or other treacherous terrains in which the vehicle becomes mired. In such a situation, the free end of a winch cable is attached to a stationary object and the winch actuated to wind in the cable and pull the vehicle out of the treacherous terrain. It has been conventional, however, to mount such winches at the front of the vehicle, thereby making it necessary to extricate the vehicle by pulling it in the direction it was headed before it became mired. This can sometimes be a drawback if rocks or other obstacles are located in front of the vehicle. The path behind a vehicle is usually clear since the vehicle had to travel over that path to reach its mired position.
Another problem with conventional vehicle-mounted winches is that they are usually power actuated. Although such power operation is a convenience, it greatly increases the cost, weight, and size of the winch attachment. It is often difficult to justify such factors since most vehicle-mounted winches are only occasionally used.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,127,295 discloses a truck bumper with a power-actuated cable winch unit. This bulky structure illustrates the problem of the prior art in which an expensive, space-consuming structure is mounted to the front of a vehicle. Although the winch is intended only for occasional use, the power-actuated winch bumper can increase the cost of a vehicle by several thousand dollars. In addition, it is difficult to pull the vehicle backward with the winch. Although the front-mounted bumper is provided at one end with a roller that permits attachment of the winch cable to a point behind the truck, rearward pulling of the truck about the roller will be accompanied by a torque that tends to rotate the vehicle as it moves backward.
Additional problems of the prior art are illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 4,419,038. This patent shows a bumper-mounted, foldable crane hoist for attachment to the rear of a vehicle. The boom has a hoist line which is secured to a motor-driven or crank-operated takeup reel in the bumper. This reel is positioned at one end of the bumper, which would present a serious impediment to manual operation of the reel in a situation where bushes or other obstacles were close to the end of the bumper at which the takeup reel is mounted.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,323 discloses a power-actuated winch system for connection to the electrical system of an automobile. The winch requires a motor and electrical connections for operation, thereby increasing the system's cost, complexity of installation and use.
All of these structures illustrate serious drawbacks of the prior art discussed above.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a manually operated winch bumper which is less expensive and bulky than prior art winches attached to vehicles.
Another object is to provide a winch bumper which can be easily and inexpensively installed on vehicles.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a winch bumper which can pull mired vehicles out of rough terrain by pulling them in the direction from which they entered the terrain without tending to rotate the vehicle body.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a manually operated winch bumper that can be operated from several different positions along the bumper in the event one of the operating positions is obstructed by brush, rocks, or other obstacles.
Finally, it is an object to provide a winch bumper which protects the body of the winch component of the bumper and the vehicle to which the bumper is attached.